Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1998 06:46:25 -0400
To: jya@pipeline.com
From: DN
Subject: AP: FBI Exempted From Declassification
July 19, 1998
FBI Exempted From Declassification
Filed at 12:09 a.m. EDT
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI was exempted from an order signed three years ago
by President Clinton automatically declassifying millions of old government
secrets, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
FBI officials defended the previously undisclosed exemption, saying it was
necessary because of the huge size of the files where both classified and
unclassified records are intermingled, often without labels to show which
ones were supposed to deal with national security, the newspaper said.
When he signed the order in 1995, Clinton said it would ``lift the veil on
millions of existing documents, keep a great many future documents from ever
being classified and still maintain necessary controls over information that
legitimately needs to be guarded in the interests of national security.''
His order calling for automatic declassification of old records by 2000 was
characterized at the time as the most significant step in reducing
government secrecy since the beginning of the Cold War.
The plan envisioned exemptions for the most sensitive records, such as CIA
covert actions, but those exemptions were to be granted after a complex
process that calls for ``a specific date or event'' when the exemptions are
to end.
Only the FBI was given blanket immunity without any cutoff date, the Post said.
It said the arrangement first came to light in court papers last month and
was laid out in detail in a memo obtained by the Post last week under the
Freedom of Information Act.
Steven Garfinkel, director of the government's Information Security
Oversight Office and a signatory to the plan, said the exemption was ``a
negotiated agreement whereby the FBI would get a very broad exemption in
return for a very broad commitment'' to review and declassify old records on
a document-by-document basis.
``Director (Louis J.) Freeh is absolutely committed to the spirit of the
executive order and to declassifying documents as fast as our resources
permit,'' Assistant FBI Director John E. Collingwood told the Post.
The FBI has declassified some records recently, including files from the
1960s and 1970s on the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement,
Students for a Democratic Society and various anti-war protests, including
the upheaval at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
But Garfinkel told the Post the FBI has declassified a ``very minuscule''
amount of records and that ``right now the jury is still out on whether the
results are going to justify this broad exception.''